Stella Stevens was an American actress and model, whose beauty and sex appeal placed her alongside sex symbols like Brigitte Bardot, Ann-Margret, and Raquel Welch in the 1960’s.

She was among the last stars to emerge from Hollywood’s studio system, an arrangement that guaranteed her work but, she often said, also limited her creative aspirations. She won a Golden Globe in the “most promising newcomer” category for her role in “Say One for Me” (1959), a musical comedy starring Bing Crosby and Debbie Reynolds, but felt coerced into joining the cast of “Girls! Girls! Girls!” (1962), an empty Elvis Presley vehicle.

She described herself as introverted and bookish. “I wanted to be a writer-director,” she said in 1994. “All of a sudden I got sidetracked into being a sexpot. Once I was a ‘pot,’ there was nothing I could do. There was nothing legitimate I could do.”

She worked with many of the top directors and actors of the 1960s. She starred as the love interest of the title character, a timid college professor who undergoes a personality transformation, in “The Nutty Professor” (1963), which Jerry Lewis wrote, directed, and starred in.

Despite her career’s post-1960s fade, Ms. Stevens remained eager to work. She turned to television and had roles in some 80 episodes over the next four decades. Most of them were guest appearances on shows like “Murder, She Wrote,” “The Love Boat,” and “Magnum P.I.,” though she was also a member of the regular cast of several shows, including the soap opera “Santa Barbara.”

By 1998 she made the following comment, “I don’t feel I’ve been successful yet. I’m still waiting to be discovered. I see myself as a work in progress. I keep trying to work and improve and do things I’m proud of.”

Stella Stevens, a beautiful actress, will live forever “In Heaven with the Stars.”